18. Georgia
18
GEORGIA
Now
I woke with a start in the morning, roughly shaken awake by a huge tattooed and unfeeling hand.
“Get dressed.”
I rubbed my scratchy eyes and sat up. My mercenary was already dressed in his usual uniform of unrelenting black. With his dark, dangerous good looks, he made his practical utilitarian clothes appear straight off the runway. He had packed his things up and was now standing and staring out the window. The memory of last night slammed into me. Oh God. When he’d touched me… damn me to hell. It had been hot. It had been the hottest thing I’d felt in well over a decade. Pathetic, Georgia.
I avoided eye contact with my mercenary, sure that he’d be able to see the shame on my face. I glanced around for my clothes… and froze.
There, at the end of the bed, was my bag from my apartment. The one I’d packed my meager meaningful belongings into.
I eyed my captor, studying his sharp profile in the morning light. He’d carried my things with him, on the run from the cops, even when I’d just escaped him. I didn’t know how I felt about that. I didn’t want to feel much of anything about it, but I couldn’t lie to myself. I did have feelings about it.
“I said, get dressed.”
“Where are my clothes from yesterday?” I pushed my confusing feelings out of my head.
“They’re too bloody. Wear something else.”
I got up and unzipped my bag. Everything was there, and it seemed untouched.
“There is one tiny problem with that,” I revealed.
He turned to me, folding his arms over his chest.
I pulled out my half-finished dresses from the bag. I had a pair of flat sandals at the bottom, thank God, and my mementos box, but other than that, the bag was full of my half-finished designs. The hopes and dreams I hadn’t quite given up on.
“This is all I have to wear.” I held up a sliver of emerald satin.
“Wear it, then,” my mercenary stated flatly.
“It’s not… finished,” I mumbled, feeling more and more like an idiot with every word. “In my defense, you said to grab the things I really needed because I was never coming back to my apartment, and then you gave me this tiny bag. Was I supposed to leave important things just to fit clean underwear and jeans? I didn’t expect to get my outfit so dirty...”
I trailed off because he’d reached into his bag and pulled out a pair of black utility pants and a black long-sleeved shirt. He tossed them to me.
“Get dressed. We’re leaving in thirty minutes.”
Well, okay then.
We were taking a plane.
Of course we were. I had to have known that in some repressed corner of my brain, but I’d blocked it out. My psyche couldn’t handle one more stress.
I hated flying. I’d done it exactly one time in my life, from Naples to LA. I’d had a panic attack at the thought of leaving Naples that I’d never forget. It felt like dying. We’d lifted into the air, and I’d forcibly ripped free from my ties to the world. I was untethered. Lost. Objectively, it was a terrifying experience.
I chewed my lip as I took the clothes my mercenary had given me and changed. My heart was beating too fast, and I felt hot all over. A panic attack lurked just on the edges of my mind.
He watched me struggle to breathe.
“What is it?” he snapped at me, always too aware of what I was feeling.
“Nothing,” I snapped right back. I knew I shouldn’t expect sympathy from him, or consideration. Most of all, I didn’t want to show him another weakness. Georgia with her crappy apartment and inherited debt and, oh yeah, her shitty father who had put her in danger. Oh, and she got turned on by being ordered around and manhandled. I couldn’t add one more weakness to that list. I couldn’t stand it.
I balled my hands into fists and got on with it. This was my life now. It rested in this man’s tattooed, calloused, uncaring hands.
Predictably, the clothes were huge and swamped me completely. I tucked the overly long shirt into the huge pants to try and make the waist a little tighter, then slipped on my flip-flops and shouldered my precious backpack.
My mercenary waited impassively at the door, and we left without a word. Half an hour later, we were boarding the private plane. It was so much smaller than a regular plane. My heart pounded even harder, and sweat drenched my face. It was tough to pull air into my lungs.
“Go.” My mercenary tapped me from behind when I hesitated at the foot of the ladder. Feeling like I was going to the electric chair, I slowly ascended the steps.
I kind of was, in a way. My father had sacrificed my safety for his life and comfort. I was being taken to one of the most ruthless kingpins on the East Coast. It didn’t matter that I’d known Renato when we were young. This was just business to him. A loose end. That was what my life had amounted to. Someone else’s inconvenient loose end.
The plane was luxurious, from the soft leather seats to the shiny walnut paneling, and even the spa-like scents in the air, but I barely registered it. Heat was building in my chest like a volcano in a bottle.
“Sit,” my mercenary ordered, again tapping my shoulder. He forced me into a solitary seat at the front of the plane.
“Aren’t I sitting with you?” I asked desperately. It was an effort to get the words out. Why I even wanted to sit with him, I had no idea, except I’d be more distracted with hating the man next to me than the plane taking off.
He didn’t reply.
“I can’t sit on my own!” I called to his departing back.
He didn’t even hesitate to leave me. He just walked away. This frightening motherfucker who didn’t even seem to sleep or eat. This monster who’d stolen my life and saved it at the same time, the one who’d threatened me at gunpoint and had hauled my box of mementos all over the city while evading the cops instead of dumping it.
The engine of the plane gunned beneath us, the drone of it cutting through my reason and breaking my patience.
The tissue box was in my hand before I could stop myself. I hurled it at my mercenary’s departing back. In that second, I was so tired of it all. Tired of being dragged around, threatened, nearly killed. I couldn’t stand it one more second.
The metal tissue box bounced off my mercenary’s back. For once in my life, I had good aim.
He stopped. The flight attendant hovering near us covered her mouth with a dramatic intake of breath.
“I said, I can’t sit on my own,” I stated, my voice wavering madly. That hot feeling in my chest was pushing to come out. It wouldn’t be contained.
“Take off as soon as you can,” my mercenary instructed the flight attendant.
She hurried out of sight. Slowly, oh-so slowly, my mercenary turned.
From behind us, the sound of the heavy door shutting thudded through the air. I swallowed down a feeling of rising nausea. Oh God, this was it. We were locked in this metal box. I couldn’t breathe.
My mercenary approached, filled with lethal grace and menace. I couldn’t keep a lid on my fears anymore. My breath was growing tighter and tighter. I was standing on a chair, a noose tied around my neck, and that, too, was getting tighter.
“What is wrong with you?” He stood in front of me. The back of his hand touched my forehead. “You’re sweating.”
A reluctant dagger of a chuckle left my tortured lungs. “Yeah, losing your mind isn’t pretty, who’d have thought?”
“Losing what?” he repeated as the plane jolted into motion.
A small scream left me that I wasn’t proud of, but I had no time to be embarrassed in front of this man. Holding the tatters of my mind together felt too difficult.
“Georgia! I’m talking to you,” my mercenary demanded.
“I don’t care!” I blurted out, caving in on myself. Fear was making it hard to speak. “I can’t do this! I can’t do any of this! Just kill me,” I panted.
The idea suddenly made so much sense. I put my trembling hands on his chest, gripping his T-shirt and holding him close. I looked up into his dark eyes.
“Just kill me. Make it quick. It’ll make both our lives easier. Please, stop dragging it out like this. Just do it. I want you to do it,” I pleaded. I wet my dry lips. It felt like my skin was going to crawl off.
The plane had started taxiing now, picking up speed. We swayed together.
“Get a grip,” my mercenary ordered as I started to wheeze.
I really couldn’t breathe. Maybe I didn’t need him to kill me; I could do that all on my own.
One moment I was dizzy, reaching for air that wasn’t there, and the next, I was in his arms.
He carried me through the plane. My vision was going dark at the edges. I could see the tattooed skin of his neck where the design disappeared beneath the beard, that perfectly lined the lower half of his face… it wasn’t the worst sight to see before you died.
Distantly, a door clicked open, and then I was falling. Landing on something soft, the movement jolted the remaining breath from my body. The bedroom was full of light from the doorway, but my mercenary kicked the door shut behind us, shrouding us in darkness apart from a small bedside lamp. I lay on the bed, crippled with panic. My lungs were cramped; they weren’t getting enough air in.
My mercenary straddled me on the bed, his knees bracketing my hips. His rough hands cupped my face.
“Breathe, Georgia! Calm the fuck down.”
I shook my head from side to side, white spots dancing in front of my eyes. I was going under. Drowning. I clawed at his arms, trying to hold onto something, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.
“ Merda . I warned you not to test me one more time or I’d put you across my knee and turn your ass so red you wouldn’t be able to sit for a week. Maybe that’s exactly what you need right now.” His growl seemed to come from far away.
Then he was turning me over, my face pressing into the bed and his heavy weight holding my thighs in place.
His hand smacked down hard on my ass cheek.
Ouch.
He matched the blow on the other side.
Fuck. That really hurt. I sucked in a breath.
“Did that get your attention?” he murmured and smacked me again.
The feeling of it radiated through me. It hurt like hell, and it was embarrassing. Being immobile and smacked. It was humiliating… Anger flowed across my panic.
“You asshole!” I wheezed out, outraged.
He chuckled darkly. “Oh, look who can speak again. I guess that means my treatment is working.”
I must have been the biggest idiot in the world, because I could’ve sworn that I’d heard a note of relief in his tone. Then his fingers closed around the waistband of my too-large pants and tugged them down.
“Hey!” I hissed at him, warmth beating in my already overheated face.
He was quiet for a second. “No panties is a choice.”
“No, it’s not. You didn’t exactly give me any to borrow, did you, dickhead?” I shot out, my lungs loosening with every word.
Another sharp spank hit my ass cheek, sending stinging pain through me. The smack on the bare ass was something else.
“If you think it’ll save your ass from me, you’re wrong.”
“God, I want to kill you,” I ground out.
His smack moved to the other cheek, and everything inside me clenched. I felt so powerless. My hands were trapped beneath me, I was facedown, he was holding me utterly prone. I couldn’t do anything to stop him. I couldn’t fight him. I couldn’t even try. The feeling of complete powerlessness built and built, while my mercenary spanked me again on the other side, his fingers dangerously close to my cleft.
“The feeling is entirely mutual, Mrs. Conti,” he murmured. “Now, breathe.”
I drew a ragged breath into my cramped lungs, the rush of oxygen making my head spin. Whoa, I’d gone too far into that panic attack. Passing out had only been seconds away.
My eyes felt wet. The tears stung my raw-feeling cheeks and sank into the bedspread.
His hand rained a smack down on my ass, and the feeling sent ripples of embarrassment through me. Shame, humiliation… you name it, I was feeling it.
“There you go, breathe again, nice and deeply. Let me feel it,” my mercenary instructed. He put a hand high on my back. “Push my hand up with air. Fill your lungs right up,” he commanded.
I found myself obeying, even though my whole being longed to defy this man. Tension started to seep out of me.
“Good girl. That’s my good girl… breathe and calm the fuck down. You’re safe here with me. You’re not going anywhere. Not even God himself can take you from this plane or me. You can’t change anything… all you have to do is accept it.”
There was a loud sound beneath us. The wheels folding in? I shuddered again, my chest threatening to close once more.
His hand smacked me again, but it felt different. Softer, somehow. His fingers lingered after, his caress feeling indecently hot on my skin, like he could singe me with his very touch. My mind rebelled against the heat working through my blood. His hand was too damn close to my pussy, and God help me, I was getting turned on. I couldn’t help it. It was the position, the powerlessness, the way his hands were so confident and masterful, like he knew exactly how to touch me. Like he knew my body better than I did.
“I accept that you’re an asshole,” I muttered into the pillow, my tears still falling. I wasn’t crying, it was simply a tension release, but fuck, it felt good. It felt good to fight with all my strength and cry and push as hard as I could and then let it all go.
His hand moved over my ass, not smacking now, just feeling the skin.
“I think you need to accept a lot more than that if you want to save this precious ass of yours. It’s already so perfectly pink… My handprint on your ass really suits you, Signora Conti.”
“Stop calling me that!” I protested.
His finger made a long line down one cheek, then he slapped my ass, the weight of the cheek jiggling.
“Why? You don’t like being reminded of your dearly departed husband when you’re facedown, ass-up on another man’s knee? Does it confuse your sweet memories of his touch?”
I snorted before I could stop myself. “My husband never touched my ass.”
My mercenary’s hand paused its sweet torture.
“Is that right?” he mused.
I gasped at a sharp pinch.
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not!” I ground out.
His hand smoothed a circle over the place he’d pinched, sending pleasure spiraling through the pain. Somehow, it felt even better, like the pinch had woken up my nerve endings and heightened their sensitivity.
“I don’t believe your loving husband would neglect to give his wife something she so clearly enjoyed.”
“Enjoyed?” I squeaked, feeling called out as hell. How did he know how good it felt? I attempted to sit up, unable to bear the thought of him knowing how his touch, delivered as a punishment, was turning me on.
“Yes, cara . Enjoyed…” he growled at me, then sent shock through my system as his fingers pulled apart my ass cheeks, exposing my most private places to him.
“What the hell?” I started but forgot my words.
His finger swiped down my ass and over my front entrance.
“You think I don’t know how wet you are?” he asked in a quietly dangerous voice.
Before I could stop him, he gathered my hair in his other hand, forced my head back, and put that wet finger to my lips.
It sank inside, and I tasted myself on his skin. Musky and desperate.
“I can smell you, Georgia.”
His words sent utter humiliation over me, and something else, so hot and wrong that I didn’t know what to do with that feeling.
His hands traveled back down my body, and he parted my cheeks again.
“So, forgive me if I don’t believe your husband neglected to give you what you so clearly like…”
He again stroked a finger down my cleft, and I shuddered. It felt too good. I was warm and empty, my panic gone, my muscles slack, and there was no escape. No escape from this man or the fate he was delivering me to.
“I warned you not to lie to me,” my mercenary was saying. “I threatened to turn your ass red, but I had no idea how poor a punishment it would be, since you’ve enjoyed it so much. I’ll have to think of something else… if you continue to lie to me.”
I flushed, heat rolling through me. I felt like a beacon on a hill, burning hard, nowhere to hide, signaling that danger was closing in… run … but it was too late.
I had no power here. I had no control. There was no escape.
There was only surrender.
“I’m not lying,” I ground out, unsure why, exactly, I cared if he believed me or not. Maybe it was the principle of it, or I just didn’t want this fucker to win again.
“Very well, in that case, you leave me no choice but to punish you for lying. Don’t forget, you brought this on yourself,” he murmured.
Heat dripped through me, lined with a sparking edge of fear.
“Try to not enjoy it too much… it is a punishment, after all.”
His softly mocking tone sent that now-familiar heat of shame through me. There was no pretending. He knew this was turning me on. He knew how my body reached for his rough touch, even as my mind rebelled.
His wet fingertip traced up from my pussy to my asshole and circled it. I clenched down hard, trying to delay the inevitable, but there was no escape when he pressed his finger inside.
I cried out, jerking against him.
“Shh, Signora Conti. Take your punishment well, and I’ll give you a treat after.”
“Fuck you,” I spit.
My nerves lit up with pleasure and pain, a mesmerizing combination, as he eased his finger deeper into my ass. My cheeks were still stinging, my pussy was wet as hell and desperate for his touch, and my ass was gripping his finger tightly.
“No. Fuck you, Georgia. Fuck you and your perfect little asshole, and your fucking gorgeous pink ass.”
His deep voice sent my eyes drifting closed, raking over my nerves, and firing a shudder through me.
“You have no control here. You have no say… I’m in charge. So, you might as well let go.”
His finger fucked gently into my ass, and the pain fell away, that tight ring of muscle stretching just enough to take him. It felt unbelievably good. Wrong and taboo and fucking weird… and so fucking good.
I felt the second my mind decided to follow his confident orders. I felt the moment when the stresses and worries of the past week — and fourteen years — fell from my shoulders and I let go.
Surrender was sweeter than I’d ever imagined. I melted into a boneless mass underneath him. There was nothing in the world but the weight of him and the feeling of his finger probing my ass, sending pleasure spiraling through me.
He pulled his finger back, only leaving the tip inside, and I found myself pushing back into him, sending his finger deeper again.
That sealed it. I had fallen into ruin, and he knew it.
His other hand gripped my ass, spreading my cheeks apart again, while his finger pumped deeply inside me.
He was watching his finger fuck my ass. I moaned, the thought somehow as hot as the act.
“Tell me the truth… did you let that man you married touch you like this?” he asked.
I shook my head, lost in the sensations.
“No. Never. Only you,” I panted out. Could I come like this? I could. I knew it in a second. I hadn’t been touched by anyone but myself in so long, I was going to come harder than I’d ever come before. And my mercenary was going to see it. Shame threatened to surface but dissipated. There was no shame in surrender.
“I almost believe you,” he murmured, sliding his thumb over my pussy, pushing inside.
I gasped, my back arching as he started to fuck my ass and my pussy at the same time.
His rhythm was intoxicating; wherever I needed him, his touch was there. I couldn’t control where he went, how fast, or how hard, and that undid me. I rose so fast, it would have been embarrassing if there’d been any space for that emotion in that perfect place.
I felt the peak rushing in. Was it obvious how long it had been since I’d last been touched? Could he see? I was humping his hand now, grinding my clit against his legs.
“Come for me, Georgia. Come with my fingers in your cunt and your ass.” He sounded pained, like a man being tortured, stretched tight on the rack. His voice dropped to nearly a whisper. “Come for me and know that this ass is mine now, and only mine.”
I couldn’t be sure if those were really his words. They were too soft, and I was too lost in the pleasure streaking through me, racing on and on, reaching up and up until I couldn’t bear it any longer.
The world exploded around me, and I came.